The Hunter’s Gonna Lay Low - Chap 150
As his eyes blinked a few times, his thin eyelids trembled slightly. His unfocused eyes stared blankly into the darkness. The first thought that came to him was nothing significant.
‘Am I blind again…?’
Just that.
Fortunately, as his senses gradually adjusted to the darkness, he began to distinguish the objects around him. He slowly propped himself up on his elbows from the mattress. The sensation of the blanket covering his body felt familiar. It was probably his bedroom at home.
He reached out and turned on the bedside lamp. The room filled with a crimson glow, casting a reddish hue on his pale face.
…
It felt like he had a very long dream.
…
But was it really a dream?
Something glittered on the soft blanket. Without hesitation, he grasped it and got out of bed. With each step, his body wobbled. Moving felt unfamiliar, as if it wasn’t his own body.
He opened the door. His bare feet touched the cold wooden floor several times as he made his way to the large window.
“…”
His clouded eyes turned toward the sky beyond the window. The massive hole in the middle of the sky was now white, and white ash was drifting down. It was a scene he had witnessed countless times over an agonizingly long period.
The landscape of the apocalypse.
Slowly, he lowered his gaze. Ash was settling on the shattered remains of buildings. Everything was white. There was no trace of life anywhere. A dull ache throbbed in his head. The hand resting on the windowpane was blackened up to the wrist.
The apocalypse was always silent and…
Thud.
He shook his head and looked at the street again. A high-rise building covered in cloth as if under repair, the busy traffic on the roads, the small people walking along the streets, and the faint sounds of car horns. Everything was in its place. The hand on the glass was now only blackened at the tips of the fingers.
For now.
“Ah…”
He let out a small sigh and roughly rubbed his face with both hands. His forehead and nape were already drenched in cold sweat.
“Damn it.”
Through the blackened fingers, his lavender eyes gleamed intensely. In those arrogant eyes, a hint of anxiety surfaced.
“What the hell is this now…?”
***
“Why…”
Click.
“…won’t it…”
Click.
“…light?”
A firm hand wrestled with an old-fashioned, neon green gas lighter. Cha Eui-jae was pressing it down against the ground, struggling to light his cigarette. Seo Min-gi glanced at him.
“Should I prepare a new lighter for you?”
“No, there’s no need for that… It’s strange, though. There should still be some gas left.”
Cha Eui-jae held the lighter up to the light, finally noticing the words written on its surface. Below the strange white text that read “Noryangjin Fish Market,” there was a phone number. He must have just picked up any old lighter left behind by customers at the hangover soup restaurant. He could never understand the tastes of hunters.
Seo Min-gi raised his head.
“Ah… I do have an item that can light things up, if you want to try it.”
“What is it?”
He rummaged through his inventory and pulled out something that looked like a gun. When he pulled the trigger, a bright blue flame flared up. Cha Eui-jae stared at the blazing pillar of fire with a dumbfounded expression.
“…A flamethrower?”
Seo Min-gi said, with a strangely proud look on his face.
“I swiped it from the confiscated items warehouse when we raided the Awakened Management Bureau. It seemed useful. It’s made with the magic stone of a flame monster, they say.”
Come to think of it, it did seem like Hong Ye-seong’s pet chicken always breathed blue fire. No way. Cha Eui-jae asked,
“Don’t tell me Hong Ye-seong…?”
“Yes, the master artisan made it.”
He really did make all sorts of strange things. Cha Eui-jae hesitantly reached out and held the cigarette to the flame. But then,
Whoosh!
“Sir?”
The blue flame engulfed both the cigarette and Cha Eui-jae’s hand at once. Seo Min-gi quickly pulled the trigger again to extinguish the flame. Cha Eui-jae casually dusted off his hand, which was now slightly singed.
“The flame’s too strong. I can’t use it.”
“…Understood. I’ll have a lighter sent to your house.”
“I told you it’s not necessary…”
Cha Eui-jae smacked his lips and put on his mask.
“So, it was another waste of time this time too.”
They were standing atop the ruins of a collapsed building inside an eroded dungeon. The ash that had regularly fallen ceased after they killed the dungeon’s master.
“Yes. We explored as much as possible, but nothing stood out. We didn’t find anything unusual compared to the other eroded dungeons. Except, over there.”
He gestured with his eyes to something beyond. Beyond the black waterway, there was another vast expanse of land.
“It’s possible there might be something over there. It would be good to investigate now, but…”
Seo Min-gi put away the flamethrower and began scribbling something rapidly on his tablet, then shrugged.
“You don’t have time for that right now, do you?”
“…”
Cha Eui-jae didn’t reply. His silence was an affirmation. Seo Min-gi paused his writing.
“There is the option of sending in the Pado Guild’s investigation team, but that’s a bit tricky. It’s probably not feasible.”
“Which guild owns this dungeon?”
“It belongs to a guild called Sanyeong, which is affiliated with HB Guild. Essentially, it’s owned by the HB Guild.”
Seo Min-gi scratched his temple with the end of his pen.
“You’re able to go anywhere because you’re the number one ranked hero and have a government official’s verification, but…”
“…”
“If I get caught being here, it’ll be a big problem.”
Cha Eui-jae needed to check on Lee Sa-young’s condition and retrieve the clock quickly. But he couldn’t leave Seo Min-gi behind. Cha Eui-jae kicked some concrete debris with his boot. Fortunately, he was quick to accept and move on.
“There’s no choice. Let’s go.”
“Yes, sir.”
Seo Min-gi melted into Cha Eui-jae’s shadow with a quiet sigh.
Splash…
As they exited the dungeon, the salty scent of the sea tickled his nose. Gentle waves crashed against the cliff, eroding it and breaking into white foam. The eroded dungeon in Mokpo had formed below a cliff that met the sea.
The sea.
They had promised to go to the sea together, but now Cha Eui-jae was here alone, just like before.
‘When will we finally get to go together?’
Without dungeons, monsters, or the system interfering— just the two of them.
‘Now, everything seems to remind me of Lee Sa-young.’
It was as if the whole world had been reconstructed around Lee Sa-young. A bitter taste lingered in his mouth. Just as he stepped onto the sandy beach, a sharp presence sent a chill down his spine. Cha Eui-jae tightened his grip on his spear and focused on the source of the feeling. A cool voice pierced his ears.
“Finally noticing me, huh? Isn’t the number one ranked hero a bit too careless?”
Her long, blonde hair, tied high, fluttered like a flag in the cold sea breeze. Cha Eui-jae recognized her well. She was, after all, a constant figure on TV, both before and after the Day of Change…
And a regular at the hangover soup restaurant.
“Well, we’re both busy, so let’s keep this brief.”
Honeybee tucked her fluttering blonde hair behind her ear and stared directly at Cha Eui-jae. Fortunately, there was no real malice in her gaze.
“…”
Cha Eui-jae lowered the spear he was holding in a threatening manner and replied,
“I have permission to enter this dungeon. There’s no need for the HB Guild to make an issue out of it.”
“That’s not my concern. I’m here for something else.”
Normally, he would have just ignored her and left. The more he ran into other hunters, the more the risks increased.
But perhaps it was the memories the clock had shown him, or maybe their connection through the hangover soup restaurant, that made him want to listen to her story. He couldn’t say for sure.
Honeybee spoke,
“Do you know about the drug that turns Awakeners into husks?”
He knew. It was because of that drug that he had met Lee Sa-young again. But Cha Eui-jae didn’t respond and instead observed Honeybee’s reaction. Perhaps taking his silence as confirmation, she continued slowly.
“The reason I sought you out specifically is because… I think you can help.”
She twirled a strand of her hair around her finger. There was a hint of hesitation in her demeanor, but soon, she spoke firmly.
“I need help, J. I need you to deliver a message.”
“What message?”
“We need to cure Matthew.”
He had encountered Matthew before during the Artisan Exhibition. If he remembered correctly, Matthew was currently ranked third in South Korea and was the guild leader of HB Guild. Cha Eui-jae asked indifferently,
“Shouldn’t you be looking for a healer to treat him?”
“We already did. They said it couldn’t be done. Even Nam Woo-jin failed. Fuck…”
Honeybee began to bite her thumbnail, her anxiety evident.
“Do you know that HB Guild has formed a partnership with Samra Guild?”
“Recently, yes.”
“…I think that’s when it all started. After that, Matthew’s condition gradually worsened. Someone who had always been calm and indifferent suddenly became emotionally volatile, always anxious, unable to control his powers…”
Her eyes glinted ominously.
“Damn it, did they think I wouldn’t notice…”
“…And?”
“Oh.”
She snapped back to attention and looked up. Then, she lowered her gaze and muttered,
“…Nam Woo-jin told me. Matthew’s symptoms are the early stages of addiction to that drug that mutates Awakeners. The organization behind the drug’s distribution is Prometheus, but while he knows the drug well, the one who truly understands the organization is Pado Guild… So he said we should ask the Pado Guild for help.”
“…”
The fact that Nam Woo-jin had shared such classified information with Honeybee likely meant that Matthew’s condition was that severe. Cha Eui-jae recalled the glimpse he’d seen of Honeybee, collapsed and sobbing, in one of the fragments Yoon Ga-eul had shown him.
The Honeybee standing before him now, though her eyes were red, was not crying.
“You’ve been working with Pado Guild recently, haven’t you? So can you pass a message to Lee Sa-young? The Shield Guy can’t deliver it himself since he’s been stuck in a dungeon lately.”
“Lee Sa-young too…”
His throat tightened for a moment. Cha Eui-jae cleared his voice and shook his head.
“Lee Sa-young won’t be of any help either. You know that, right? Due to health issues…”
“What are you talking about?”
Honeybee frowned.
“It’s no secret that the health excuse was just a cover. Everyone’s already shared in the Hunter’s Channel that Lee Sa-young was spotted around Incheon just a few hours ago…”
Thud. Honeybee’s eyes widened as J abruptly grabbed her shoulders and leaned in close.
The black mask that hid his expression, and the distorted voice that carried no emotion, growled in a low, biting tone.
“What did you just say?”
